The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu has admitted that the proposed infectious diseases control bill still requires more consultation, if it must serve the purpose it’s being created for.
Ihekweazu said passing such bill in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic is not advisable, but should be done carefully after the crisis, with wide consultations with stakeholders to draft a bill that will serve the country now and in the future.
“Of course the bill requires more consultation, I am personally not in favour of starting the bill in the middle of a crisis I think we need to get over the crisis, get our heads around what has happened and use the momentum to engage with all stakeholders to come up with a bill that will really serve this country for now and in the future,” Ihekweazu said responding to questions during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19.
“Whatever new legislation will come up for public health and infectious diseases in Nigeria will be so important because there’s never been a time that the importance of this has been more clear in the consciousness of Nigerians.
“So we must think each steps carefully and come up with a bill that is fit a purpose that serves us now and well into the future,” he added.
Also speaking at the press meeting, the DG further admitted that government is struggling to make bed spaces available especially in Lagos and to some extent Kano and FCT, but said the biggest challenge is in Lagos, where bed spaces are really tight.
The DG stated that there are about 3,500 bed spaces available for COVID-19 patients across the country, but government is working with Lagos state government to make more bed spaces available.
Due to this shortage, Ihekweazu said government is considering home care in Lagos state.
“We are struggling at the moment, ultimately we might have to change their strategy a little bit and start considering home care in certain circumstances, to provide a room where a patient can be managed sufficiently and secondly we are able to support the care by enabling health care workers come to that.
He further said the centre is scaling up testing for the Covid-19 by deploying more health workers to go into communities to collect samples of cases that meets the case definition
The DG said all health care workers have now being trained to go in quietly not to attract a lot of attention particularly in Lagos, FCT and Kano states with ongoing community transmission.
Ihekweazu urged every citizens within community to accept and give the health care workers the needed cooperation to enable them carry out their jobs.
He also urged Nigerians not to stigmatize the health care workers or the community where they will work in.
“We are in the process of scaling up testing across the country and the key component that the change in this in Abuja Lagos and Kano. Our response strategy us an adaptive one.
“We are not waiting for patients to come, we are going into communities to identify patients that meet this case definition and bring them in, we are doing this because we are fairly certain we now have ongoing community transmission especially in this three cities.
“More and more health workers will go into communities. For us to go into communities, you have to accept us in, you have to be willing to accept health care workers and support them and not stigmatize them”, the DG said.
The DG further informed that response in Kano is improving. He said there are now two laboratories functioning and a third one will be activated by the weekend.
“The process of identifying contact cases, collecting samples and getting them into care is improving and will continue to improve.
“I have every confidence that work we are doing in Kano will yield results and will very soon see improvements in Kano like we have seen a across the country,” Ihekweazu said.
